25 Best Tried and True Japanese Black Vinegars in 2022 (Sakamoto Brewing, Melodian, and More)

This black vinegar from Yakult is delicious! If you like umeshu plum wines like Choya brand, you'll surely love this one.

It's refreshingly sweet and lightly sour. The aroma is enticing and the taste is well-balanced. It's not too sugary or too acidic and leaves a pleasant aftertaste. Both women and men, and people of all ages, will enjoy this vinegar right from the first sip!

It's made with Kishu Minami Takaume plums. Yakult is well-known for making drinks that adjust your gut bacteria to aid digestion, and this vinegar will do the same. It contains galacto-oligosaccharides (sugars) that increase the growth of healthy bifidobacteria in your intestines.

If you choose this black vinegar, you'll get health benefits and a great taste in one product. We recommend it highly!

This is so yummy you'll want to put it in everything! It's made by combining Concord grapes and black vinegar from rice. The sweet grape flavor lingers on your tongue, muting the acidity of the vinegar, and the taste overall is well-balanced.

We recommend enjoying it with Japanese sake or other alcohol, or sparkling water. It would also be a perfect match for ice cream or yogurt, or to make a dessert sauce. And it's quite delicious just on its own, too!

This one tastes just like apple juice! We think children would love it diluted with sparkling water, or it can be enjoyed straight like a juice. In fact, it's great for dieters too, because it's blended with polyphenols from apples. But if you're looking for the sourness of vinegar, you'll have to look elsewhere.

These come in small drink boxes with little straws. You could pop one into your kids' lunchboxes, or toss one in your gym bag for some refreshing hydration.

This vinegar is made from healthy, unpolished brown rice and blended with honey, apple juice, and oligosaccharides. The resulting flavor is sweet, with a lingering aftertaste and clear throat.

It may not be suitable to use with food, but as a drink, it can be enjoyed with sparkling water or hot water for a delicious refreshing beverage.

Even though this is unique, it's easy to drink and would be enjoyed by anyone! If you're looking for fat-burning benefits and want to buy from Mizkan but don't want their blueberry variety, try this one.

Yogurt is added to black vinegar, giving it a sweet and sour taste. The mild sourness reminds us of yogurt, though; it doesn't have a pungent vinegar flavor. It's balanced and differently delicious.

With a modest sour taste and strong sweetness, this vinegar is easy to drink like a juice. In fact, some of our tasters thought is was a bit too syrupy sweet.

It contains vitamins C and E, calcium, and fiber. You can find it in small drink boxes too, which are good to toss in your lunch or backpack. If you want a healthy drink that's also sweet, it's a great choice.

Containing 10 billion lactic acid bacteria for gut health, this vinegar is blended with iyokan juice from Ehime prefecture. The result is a citrusy drink that's refreshing and light. The sourness of the citrus fruit masks the vinegar.

It's a delicious choice for a summer drink or for anyone who likes citrus tastes and wants to give their gut a boost, too.

This blend of black vinegar and pomegranate juice is refreshing and light. There is a bit of astringency in the aftertaste, but this perfectly compliments the flavor, providing a grapeskin-like flavor accent. There are also hints of acerola tropical fruit.

It's a great choice for anyone who likes light, exotic flavors. It would also make a nice gift, and is tasty enough to drink for breakfast every day.

A refreshing blend of blueberry, grape and black vinegar, this one has a deep taste a bit like red wine. The acidity is balanced with the sweet, fruity taste of blueberries, and the astringency of grape skins comes out as an accent.

It contains acetic acid, which has visceral fat-burning properties. It you want a good taste with health benefits, give this a try.

Moromi vinegar is made from the used rice after making Okinawa sake. Here it's blended with barley malt vinegar and seasoned with apples and mango puree. The taste is very rich, and the acids are balanced by sweetness.

However, some of our tasters thought it was too sweet, having a syrupy taste similar to mirin.

You'll have no trouble finishing the whole little drink box with this blend of apples, honey and black vinegar. It's very sweet, and would also be good served over shaved ice for a refreshing dessert. But like some of the others we tried, the syrupy sweetness wasn't popular with everyone.

It comes in individual boxes that can be kept at room temperature for easy storage in your cabinet. That also makes is easy to carry around all day.

With modest acidity and sweetness, this is easy to drink and can be used in cooking as well. It won't overpower your dishes, but is sweet and sour with honey and fruit flavors.

It got a low score from those who wanted to really feel like they were drinking vinegar, but as a secret ingredient to enhance the flavor of your dishes at home.

This "Every Day Vinegar" is marketed as being good for people with high blood pressure. We didn't test that, but we found it very acidic with a strong vinegar taste that tingled our throats. 

However, it was neutralized by a sweet taste, so it was perfectly drinkable. It has only 16 calories per 100 milliliters, so it's a good choice for dieters.